"Listen, abbe," replied the lieutenant of police with a grave air, "if all you have told me about monseigneur is true, the thing is serious and I am in the wrong not to know it, if any one doesbut there is no time lost. We will find the culprits, and punish them as they deserve."
"But," said the regent, "you must not attach too much importance to this; they were, probably, some drunken officers who wished to amuse their companions."
"It is a conspiracy, monseigneur," replied Dubois, "which emanates from the Spanish embassy, passing through the Arsenal before it arrives at the Palais Royal."
"Again, Dubois?"
"Always, monseigneur."
"And you, D'Argenson, what is your opinion?"
"That your enemies are capable of anything, monseigneur; but that we will mar their plots, whatever they may be, I give you my word."
At this moment the door opened, and the Duc de Maine was announced, who came to attend the council, and whose privilege it was, as prince of the blood, not to be kept waiting. He advanced with that timid and uneasy air which was natural to him, casting a sideglance over the three persons in whose presence he found himself, as though to discover what subject occupied them at his entrance. The regent understood his thought.
"Welcome, my cousin," said he; "these two bad fellowswhom you knowhave just been assuring me that you are conspiring against me."
The Duc de Maine turned as pale as death, and was obliged to lean for support on the crutchshaped stick which he carried.
"And I hope, monseigneur," replied he, in a voice which he vainly endeavored to render firm, "that you did not give ear to such a calumny."
"Oh, mon Dieu! no!" replied the regent negligently; "but they are obstinate, and declare that they will take you one day in the fact. I do not believe it, but at any rate I give you warning; be on your guard against them, for they are clever fellows, I warrant you."
The Duc de Maine opened his mouth to give some contemptible excuse, when the door opened again, and the groom announced successively the Duc de Bourbon, the Prince de Conti, the Duc de St. Simon, the Duc de Guiche, captain of the guards; the Duc Noailles, president of the council of finance; the Duc d'Antin, superintendent of ships; the Marshal d'Uxelles, president of the council of foreign affairs; the Archbishop of Troyes; the Marquis de Lavrilliere; the Marquis d'Efflat; the Duc de Laforce; the Marquis de Torcy; and the Marshals de Villeroy, d'Estrées, de Villars, and de Bezons.
As these grave personages were gathered together to deliberate upon the treaty of the quadruple alliance, brought from London by Dubois, and as the treaty of the quadruple alliance only figures secondarily in this history, our readers will excuse our leaving the sumptuous receptionroom in the Palais Royal, to lead them back to the attic in the Rue du TempsPerdu.
Chapter XX
The Conspiracy
D'Harmental, after having placed his hat and cloak on a chair, after having placed his pistols on his table, and his sword under his pillow, threw himself dressed on to his bed, and, more happy than Damocles, he slept, though, like Damocles, a sword hung over his head by a thread.
When he awoke it was broad daylight, and as the evening before he had forgotten to close his shutters, the first thing he saw was a ray of sunshine playing joyously across his room. D'Harmental thought that he had been dreaming, when he found himself again calm and tranquil in his little room, so neat and clean, while he might have been at that hour in some gloomy and somber prison. For a moment he doubted of its reality, remembering all that had passed the evening before; but all was therethe red ribbon, the hat and cloak on the chair, the pistols on the table, and the sword under the pillow; and, as a last proof, he himself in the costume of the day before, which he had not taken off, for fear of being surprised by some nocturnal visit.
D'Harmental jumped from his bed. His first look was for his neighbor's window: it was already open, and he saw Bathilde passing and repassing in her room; the second was for his glass, which told him that conspiracies suited himindeed, his face was paler than usual, and therefore more interesting; his eyes were rather feverish, and therefore more expressive: so that it was evident that, when he had smoothed his hair and arranged his collar and cravat, he would be a most interesting person to Bathilde. D'Harmental did not say this, even to himself; but the bad instinct which always impels our poor souls to evil whispered these thoughts to him, so that when he went to his toilet he suited his dress to the expression of his facethat is to say, that he dressed entirely in black, that his hair was arranged with a charming negligence, and that he left his waistcoat more than usually open, to give place to his shirtfrill, which fell with an ease full of coquetry. All this was done in the most preoccupied and careless manner in the world; for D'Harmental, brave as he was, could not help remembering that at any minute he might be arrested; but it was by instinct that, when the chevalier gave the last look in the glass, before leaving his little dressingroom, he smiled at himself with a melancholy which doubled the charm of his countenance. There was no mistake as to the meaning of this smile, for he went directly to the window.
Perhaps Bathilde had also her projects for the moment when her neighbor should reappear, perhaps she had arranged a defense which should consist in not looking toward him, or in closing her window after a simple recognition; but at the noise her neighbor's window made in opening, all was forgotten, and she ran to the window, crying out:
"Ah! there you are. Mon Dieu! monsieur, how anxious you have made me!"
This exclamation was ten times more than D'Harmental had hoped for. If he, on his part, had prepared some wellturned and eloquent phrases, they were all forgotten, and clasping his hands:
"Bathilde! Bathilde!" he cried, "you are, then, as good as you are beautiful!"
"Why good?" asked Bathilde. "Did you not tell me that if I was an orphan, you also were without parents? Did you not say that I was your sister, and you were my brother?"
"Then, Bathilde, you prayed for me?"
"All night," replied the young girl blushing.
"And I thanked chance for having saved me, when I owed all to an angel's prayers!"
"The danger is then past?" cried Bathilde.
"The night was dark and gloomy," replied D'Harmental. "This morning, however, I was awakened by a ray of sunshine which a cloud may again conceal: so it is with the danger I have run; it has passed to give place to a great happinessthat of knowing you have thought of me, yet it may return. But stay," continued he, hearing steps on the staircase, "there it is, perhaps, approaching my door."
As he spoke, some one knocked three times at the chevalier's door.
"Who is there?" asked D'Harmental from the window, in a voice which, in spite of all his firmness, betrayed some emotion.
"A friend," answered a voice.
"Well?" asked Bathilde, with anxiety.
"Thanks to you, God still continues to protect me: it is a friend who knocks. Once again, thanks, Bathilde." And the chevalier closed his window, sending the young girl a last salute which was very like a kiss; then he opened to the Abbe Brigaud, who, beginning to be impatient, had knocked a second time.
"Well," said the abbe, on whose face it was impossible to see the smallest change, "what has happened, then, my dear pupil, that you are shut in thus by bolts and bars? Is it as a foretaste of the Bastille?"
"Holla! abbe," said D'Harmental, in a cheerful voice, "no such jokes, I beg; they might bring misfortune."
"But look! look!" said Brigaud, throwing his eyes round him, "would not any one suppose they were visiting a conspirator? Pistols on the table, a sword on the pillow, and a hat and cloak on the chair. Ah! my dear pupil, you are discomposed, it appears to me! Come, put all this in order, that I may not be able to perceive, when I pay my paternal visit, what passes during my absence."
D'Harmental obeyed, admiring, in this man of the Church, the sangfroid which he himself found it difficult to attain.
"Very good," said Brigaud, watching him, "and this shoulderknot which you have forgotten, and which was never made for you (for it dates from the time when you were in jackets), put it away too; who knows?you may want it."
"And what for, abbe?" asked D'Harmental, laughing; "to attend the regent's levée in?"
"Oh, no, but for a signal to some good fellow who is passing; come, put it away."
"My dear abbe," said D'Harmental, "if you are not the devil in person, you are at least one of his most intimate acquaintances."
"Oh, no! I am a poor fellow who goes his own quiet way, and who, as he goes, looks high and low, right and left, that is all. Look, there is a ray of spring, the first, which knocks humbly at your window, and you do not open it: one would suppose you were afraid of being seen. Ah, pardon! I did not know that, when your window opened, another must close."
"My dear abbe, you are full of wit," replied D'Harmental, "but terribly indiscreet; so much so, that, if you were a musketeer instead of an abbe, I should quarrel with you."
"And why? Because I wish to open you a path to glory, fortune, and, perhaps, love? It would be monstrous ingratitude."
"Well, let us be friends, abbe," said D'Harmental, offering his hand, "and I shall not be sorry to have some news."
"Of what?"
"How do I know? Of the Rue des Bons Enfants, where there has been a great deal going on, I believe; of the Arsenal, where, I believe, Madame de Maine has given a soirée; and even of the regent, who, if I may believe a dream I had, came back to the Palais Royal very late and rather agitated."
"All has gone well. The noise of the Rue des Bons Enfants, if there were any, is quite calm this morning; Madame de Maine has as much gratitude for those whom important affairs kept away from the Arsenal as she has contempt for those who were there; finally, the regent, dreaming last night, as usual, that he was king of France, has already forgotten that he was nearly the prisoner of the king of Spain. Now we must begin again."
"Ah, pardon, abbe," said D'Harmental; "but, with your permission, it is the turn of the others. I shall not be sorry to rest a little, myself."
"Ah, that goes badly with the news I bring you."